MAGNET contributing editor Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’30s through the ’70s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every Friday.
The Thin Man (1934, 93 minutes)
William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles were silver-screen trendsetters in many ways. Debonair and quick-witted, Nick was the prototype for the wisecracking private detective soon to flood the market. Nora, a slim brunette who wore such striking dresses even the guys noticed, grew into a role model for the modern woman who wasn’t content to stay home and clean house. The nonstop banter between the two is priceless.
But they also may have been partly responsible for a skyrocketing alcohol problem in America. They made drinking cocktails look irresistible. When Nick first appears in The Thin Man—based on Dashiell Hammett’s novel and the first of six Thin Man films made by the pair—he’s showing the bartender of a New York nightclub how to mix drinks. “It’s all in the rhythm,” says Nick. “For a Manhattan, you shake to a fox trot. You shake a Bronx to a two-step. And a dry martini is always shaken to waltz time.”
Nora soon shows up, unceremoniously dragged into the club by their wire fox terrier, Asta, a dog who knows his master’s haunts. Nick immediately orders Nora a martini. “How many drinks have you had?” she asks. “This makes six martinis,” he answers, counting on his fingers. “Please bring me five more martinis and line them up right here,” she tells the waiter who’s just brought her first one.
Nick and Nora are vacationing in New York after spending four years in California. Nick is now happily retired from the gumshoe racket, he tells everyone. But not for long. Dorothy Wynant (Maureen O’Sullivan) corners him in the club and begs him to help find her father. Clyde Wynant, a cranky, secretive inventor, has been missing for three months after promising he’d return by Christmas for his daughter’s wedding. Nick says he’ll think about it.
“They all say you’re a good detective,” teases Nora. “I’d like to see you work.” She gets her chance when Joe Morelli (Edward Brophy), a cheap gangster, bursts into their hotel room late at night, waves a pistol at Nick and demands to know if the cops suspect him in the murder of Wynant’s girlfriend. Nick slugs Nora in the jaw to get her out of the line of fire, then tackles Morelli just as the cops arrive.
“It’s only a scratch,” Nick tells a woozy Nora of a gunshot wound in his side. The remedy, of course, is another round of drinks for both. Next morning, Nora is reading the newspaper accounts of Morelli’s attack. “It says in the Post you were shot five times,” she says. “And I read you were shot twice in the tabloids.” Without missing a beat, Nick deadpans, “Not true. They didn’t come anywhere near my tabloids.”
